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Monday, February 18, 2013

Priorities

What are your priorities? You know, the things that define who you are.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. It finally dawned on me that no matter how crazy cool my goals are, I was never going to accomplish them if they weren't in line with my priorities. No matter how hard I try, if a goal makes me compromise one of my priorities, it's not going to happen.

So, how do you figure out your priorities so that your goals line up with them? Priorities are those things in your life that you would be devastated if they disappeared. They are what fulfill you, give you purpose in life, makes you proud...

Can you name at least five things that are that important in your life? How about your top three? Of those three, what is the most important?

Write a priority statement for that one and keep it with you where ever you go. Look at it every day. The more you keep that front and center, the easier it will be to choose what goals you're going to accomplish, what tasks are important and (most importantly) who is the most important. And then you will know where to focus your time and energy.

I sat down and did this for myself at the beginning of the year. I wasn't surprised with my top three, but I was surprised at some of the results from looking at my goals through my *priority lens.*

My top priority, the one thing I never want to forget is to honor God in everything I do. This changes how I look at my relationship with my husband (does that comment build him up or tear him down?) how I deal with my kids (even though I don't want to play another game of Go fish, is it important to them?) and how I deal with people in my business.

By filtering my goals through this lens, I know which ones to focus my time on. And I know that if I honor my priority, the goals that I have set will soon be checked off and I'll be planning new ones.

I challenge you to take an honest look at your priorities and write them out. You will be surprised at how it changes how you look at your goals!